Shamrock Check In

Come tomorrow Shamrock has been part of our lives for 2 months. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like a lot longer. I think it has to do with all the scares he has given us, the multiple vet trips, and gobs of money he have spent on him so far. However, so far we feel everything we done has been worth it, because he is an awesome cat.

 

As a write this post, he is hanging out with me keeping me company on this "snowy" day.

Being that we live in Chicago, this is kind of sad when this is the most snow we have seen since last winter. I'm not a huge fan of snow, but the snow makes the leafless trees look less sad. 

Since starting this post, Shamrock has decided that hiding under the blanket would more fun then just sitting nicely next to me. I shouldn't be surprised because in the last few days, sleeping under blankets seems to be his new favorite thing. Here is what I came home to the other day-

How cute is this guy!

In other cat news- I did take Shamrock to see the neurologist on Monday morning. The vet is about hour and half away, but I was impressed on how caring and knowledgeable the vet was. She said he was the first cat she's been able to cuddle with in months, and he his exam was great. She recommended we just keep him on the anti-seizure meds, and to go to our local vet to do some blood work in 2 weeks.

However, within 30 minutes of getting home, Shamrock had another seizure. This seizure didn't last as long as some of the others (that was his fourth seizure since that first ER trip), but it did wipe him out. It took him about a day to get enough energy to start eating and drinking, and then another day to start acting like himself again. We are hoping that the long car trip is what caused the attack, and the meds will continue to help him live a normal life.

Being pet parents we want to make sure we do as much as we can to help our pet. However, some of the testing the vet is recommending is thousands of dollars and that's not really an option for us at this point. So I'm just hoping that we have found the problem and we can continue to manage it with medication. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how Shamrock is doing, and any good thoughts/ prayers our way would be appreciated.

The Gift of Memories!

I know that this season is more about giving than getting gifts. However, I think it's important to be thankful for the gifts you do receive. This years I was blessed with a lot of wonderful things that I received for Christmas.

 

The husband got me this beautiful necklace. I wanted a new nice necklaces because my old "Open Heart" chain broke and now is missing completely. I'm pretty good at losing jewelry, but I'm going to do my best not the lose this one.

However, Christmas is about giving and I tried to give some gifts that were more sentimental than just another "thing". One of the hardest people to get gifts for is my grandma. She never needs anything, so I wanted to give her something you can't just buy at any store. I wanted to give her the gift of memories.

Growing up my grandma often had a video camera attached to her hand. She love taping us and we loved watching the tapes. However, VHSs are starting to become very dated technology and soon we may be unable to watch these memories anymore. So I thought it would be a good idea to convert the VHS tapes to DVDs and give them as gifts.

I brought a VHS to DVD converter at Best Buy. What I like about this converter system is that you can just do a straight conversion, or you can edit the DVD and put multiple videos on one disk. It just depends on how long the home movie is and how much of the home movie you want to edit away. Being that it takes time to record the video off the VHS, it take more time to edit and add titles to the video, then even more time burn the disk- this process wasn't quick but I think it was worth it.

I gave 4 videos/ DVDs to my grandma and 4 DVDs to my sister, so I think the money I spent on the converter and the disks was worth it. I hope to finish doing the rest of the home videos at some point, and I was told by Sam's parents that I'm going to get the honor of converting their home movies too. Exciting stuff, but I think it's going to worth having the memories saved in a more user friendly format.

This time of the year is about making memories and sharing memories with the people that you love. And because I love my readers- here is one of my favorite clips from the home movies. It's of me eating ice cream.

I can only image how nice a sticky I was. Yummy!

Christmas Recap!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas (assuming you celebrate Christmas) yesterday. The last few days have been very busy, but it was worth the effort.

On Christmas Eve, we had Sam's family over. This was a true test of our hosting skills because we had a total of 15 of us eating dinner, sharing gifts, and just spending some family time together. Also being that he has a big Italian family, we had enough food left over to feed my whole family the next day.

Christmas morning my dad's side of the family came in from Michigan. This is the first time they have made the trip this way for the holidays, but it was great to see everyone and show them our house.

We started by opening gifts. This year I try to give some more personal and customized gifts, because after awhile you really don't need or want as much. I'll go into more details about the gifts I was most excited to give in another post, but I hope my grandma and sister both liked them.

After gifts, we sat down for lunch before everyone had to hit the road and go home.

Once everyone left, Sam and I got a little time to relax before we headed to his parent house for our final Christmas party.
 
All in all the holidays have been really nice. It was nice that a lot our of family got the chance to see our house now that we are fully moved in. Also, being that we hosted Christmas, we still have enough left overs to last us until 2013. I call that an extra unexpected gift for us! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

I know I haven't posted everything since my birthday, but things got a little crazy the last week and half. So far my 27th year hasn't been as good as I was hoping. The cat has given us another two scares since that first ER trip. He is now on anti-seizure medication, and has a specialist appointment tomorrow at a vet over an hour away. Since the last scare, Shamrock seems to be doing better but I'm still going to take him to the specialist just to be safe.

Also, last week I ended passing out onto my bedroom floor. That really freaked out the husband because he's the one who found me on my floor. I got a really ugly bruise on my arm and my neck was hurting for about three days afterwards. However, I'm feeling better and I'm just excited I get a week off of work.

Being that this is the first year we have a house, we are hosting Christmas Eve for Sam's family, and then my family is coming over on Christmas morning. We still have cleaning to do and I have to still have to wrap all of my Christmas gifts, so that's what we'll be doing today.

Even though the last week and half has been stressful and crazy, I'm excited to see family and show them our new home. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holidays!

My 27th Years on this Earth

So it's my birthday, and I'm excited for my 27th year on this earth. For some reason I have always put expectations on different years throughout my life. For example- I always believed that Junior year of high school was going to be the best year of high school (it wasn't- Senior year was the best. However, junior year wasn't bad, just not the best.) And, for some reason I have this crazy expectation the 27 is going to be an awesome year in my life.

Looking at my life, I think things a really good right now. I have a great husband, great family, great friends, a nice home, and a steady job. There not much more a girl could ask for. So I think this year to going to be all about joy & excitement. Here is a list of things I'm excited for-

Weddings! (I have 4 weddings that I know of so far that I'll be attending.)

 
Baby! (Not me- but one of my really good friends Mike & Ashley are having their first child)

Cruise! (We have a group of 9 of us going.)

And we'll see what other exciting things this year will bring!

Happy Birthday to me! Here is to another year older and hopefully another year wiser!

Shamrock's ER Trip

So Mr. Shamrock gave us a huge scare last night. It was about 10:30pm last night and I heard him screaming. I ran downstairs to find him laying flat on his stomach not moving, just screaming. I have never seen a cat look like this so, Sam and I did what any good pet parents would do, and we rushed him to the Emergency Vet.

 (Source)

By the time we got there he had stop screaming but was almost lifeless when we brought him in. The staff rushed him in the back to start working on him right away. I had to fill out some paperwork, and wait about 15 minutes before the vet came out and saw us.

This really didn't look good for Mr. Shamrock. The vet told us Shamrock had a type of "stroke" that cuts off the blood to his back legs (the real name is saddle thrombus -if you want learn more about it click here). When they brought us in the room to see him, they had him on oxygen and sedated. He looked so sad just laying there helpless.

The vet told us with something like this it just comes on very quick, without warning, and is the prognosis wasn't good. He gave us about a 50/50 shot of him living through the night. Let me tell you even though we only have had this cat for 40 days, this news broke our hearts. After some tears, we left him in the hands of the vet and went home to wait for the call no one wants to get.

Well- that call never came. Around 1:30am we called and we got some news that he was doing better. He was awake and alert. This news calmed us enough that we were able to go to sleep. By 7:00am when we pick him up he was up, walking, and ready to go home to claim his couch.

 

  
Other then the blue arm bandage, you would never had know he was on his death bed not 8 hours earlier. I feel so lucky that he pulled through, but I'm worried that we'll have to go through this again. So we hope to take him to a vet tomorrow to see what we can do to help prevent this from happening again (if that is possible).

Shamrock's Day at the Dentist

Shamrock has settled in nicely to our little family. Other than waking us up in the morning with his cries for attention, he is an awesome cat. So this morning he was completely unaware of his fate for the rest of the day- a trip to the pet dentist.

He was already for another lazy day ruling the couch but as soon as put him in the cat carrier, he knew something was up. Driving him to the vet was no fun because all he did was cry the whole way there. I took him to the vet that is in the shelter that we got him from. I'm pretty sure he knew where he was because as soon as he was in the office he got really quite and sad looking. It kind of made me feel like bad pet mommy.

Being that I worked as a dental assistant for a while, I do understand how important good oral health is for your over all health. And that is true for animals as well. When filling out the paperwork, I told the vet to contact me if they had to do anything more then just the cleaning. Well, it wasn't too much of a surprise when I got a call while I was at work.

Shamrock has stage 3 periodontal disease. For the non-dental people- he had pretty nasty teeth and gums. So when the vet called, she let me know that she recommended that I have 3 of his teeth pulled that were infected and probably giving him discomfort. So now Shamrock has 3 less teeth and some meds to help him start healing and feeling better.

When he got home he was still really drugged up, and they recommended we leave he in his carrier until he was a little more coherent. This was him right when I got home. I thought it was kind of funny, but currently I have a cat that is acting more like a very hungry drunken toddler- it not as fun as it sounds. I have to keep an eye on him to makes sure he doesn't hurt himself or eat anything he's not suppose to. 

Oh the life of a pet parent- it is exciting stuff.

My lil Brother is Growing Up!

Considering I have known Jimmy since he was 4 years old, I think he is about as close to being my real brother as you can get. And this year is a big year- he turned 16 today!

 

For boys a 16th birthday isn't as big a deal. Pizza, football, cake, and friends- that's all they need. However, you'll really start feeling older once you get those car keys in your hand!

Now that your taller than me, I'm not sure if can lil is the right word but-
Happy Birthday lil Bro!

It's December!?!

I have finally given in and have come to terms that this year has flown bye in what it feels like a blink of an eye. So I decided that I need to start getting into the holiday spirit being that it is December 1st.

I don't like to wait till the last minute to do my holiday shopping so I hit a few stores to see what I could find. Most of my family doesn't want anything specifically so I tried to find some things they may like and use. I did find gifts for many of my family members, so it was a good start.

 

Soon after returning from my shopping trip, my dad stopped by my house for a visit. Being that Sam is not much of a decorator, I put my dad to work. I love our tree because it's pre-lit and pre-decorated. All you really have to do is take it out of its box and plug it in, but I do have a few personal ornaments and garland that gets added.

 

While my dad worked on the finishing touches to my little tree, I started hanging lights around the front windows. I have no intentions on get on a ladder and hanging lights outside my house, but I figure having the lights around the windows is kind of festive. I think it turned out alright.

Once the light were hung my dad went home and then Sam and I went out for dinner. We met up our friends Mike and Ashley at a local OTB (off track betting) place just down the road from our house.

 

 I have never been to a OTB place before, but it was pretty fun and they had good food. Sam and Mike did some betting, while Ashley & I kept an eye on our husbands spending. The boys got really into looking at all the different stats and comparing all the horses.

 

 Ashley and I both commented that we hadn't ever seen them study something so hard, even when they were in school. No one won, but not too much money was spent- so I'll take that as a win for our wallet.

December has started off on the right foot and I'm excited for the rest of the month has in store!

Wanting to be Superwoman

Every so often I get this “itch” that I need to be very productive. It doesn’t happen that often because I like to think of myself as a laid back person (even if the husband would disagree). However, last night I got it in my head that I needed to get a lot of things done before I went to work today.

Thursdays are my late night at work, so I don’t have to be at the office until 11:00am. Having one morning free during the week is nice because I can get some stuff done (or not- and just sleep in). Most Thursday mornings I’ll get a few things done, but today I think I was trying for some kind of record. Let’s recap my morning from 7:30am to 10:30am-

Get up.
Shower.
Get dress.
Dry hair.
Eat breakfest.
Start a load of laundry.

 

Go to bank- deposit Sam's money.
Go grocery shopping at Dominck's
Go grocery shopping at Aldi's. 

 

Go to another bank- deposit our money.

Come home. Load groceries and put them away.

Move laundry to dryer.

Load dishwasher.

Make lunch.

Go to work.

All that in just a 3 hour span- I call that pretty good. 

However, since I came home I've only ate dinner, sat my butt on the couch, and finished writing this post. And I don't have plans to do much other then watch TV and go to bed.

All and all today was a great day. Even if I am not Superwoman, at least I can be productive for a part of my day.

Got to Love 4 Day Weekends!

Happy Monday! Hope you all had a good Turkey Day! So I was one of those lucky people who got a 4 day weekend out of the holiday. I have to say it was a much needed break. It was a great break because everyone knows that our office is closed and that meant I didn't come into a overly full email and voicemail boxes. Win!

This weekend consisted of many things and nothing all at the same time. It was great. Here a some shots of my extend weekend.

 

I started the weekend off by doing some laundry, catching up on my reality TV, and spending time with the "Dude".  I moved for one minute and he stole my prefect folding laundry/ watching TV seat.

I also did some decorating around the house. I just hung up some the wall art that I've been putting off since we moved in. I'm hoping to get everything up by the end of the holidays. 

I also was able to get in two movies over the weekend. I'm not sure when I saw a movie in the theaters last, but see two movies within two days is very unheard of in my life. Yes, I saw Twilight and I'm not ashamed, but I held out till I knew the mega fans weren't going to be there. 

We also can't talk about Thanksgiving weekend and not talk about the food. My camera was home on Thanksgiving, but on Sunday we went to Sam's parents house and we had his mom's homemade red sauce. Both days were filled with the 3 F's- family, food and football.

All and all it was a great weekend! However, I was ready to go back to work. I'm lucky enough to say the weekend didn't fly by, but I just really got to enjoy all the time off. 

Question: Did you do anything fun or exciting over the Thanksgiving weekend?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I know that November hasn't been my month when it comes to blogging, but now that the holiday season is here I have a feeling life & blogging will start picking up.

Currently I'm writing this blog post while watching the McDonald's (Chicago) & Macy's (New York) Thanksgiving Parade. I remember this being a tradition grown up and I still do enjoy in.

For the rest of the day... Sam & I hope to get to the gym before it closes. We have been doing pretty good again when it comes to getting into the gym and getting good workouts completed. Currently, the scale hasn't reflected our work but these things take time.

Later this afternoon, we'll be heading to Sam's aunt's house to undo all the work we are going to do in the gym today by enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure who is all going, but it will be nice to visit with his family.

Then- who knows what the rest of our night will include. I'm not a big "Black Friday" shopper, so I have no plans on fighting the lines and dealing with the traffic. Plus I still can't believe that it's already time to think about holiday shopping, so this a way I can stay in denial a little longer.

I hope you all have a happy & safe Thanksgiving!

Hello November!

Hi Everyone! I can't believe we are almost halfway through November already. After my anniversary marathon of blog posting, I needed to take little bit of a break from the blog. But I'm back! Here are some ramblings of what's going on my life.

Life is going well. Shamrock has settled in nicely to our little family.

We still haven't decided if we are going to change his name (probably not, but we'll see). Currently Sam has been calling him "The Dude" like from the "The Big Lebowski". Even though I haven't seen the movie, it seem like it's a pretty good nickname.

In other news- we finally have a washer & dryer!

Yesterday afternoon was spent with Mike & Sam in truck going into the city to pick up the washer and dryer for Sam's great uncle's house.  I'm excited that I won't have to keep trucking my clothes across town to our parents to wash them. Now, I just have to wait another day until they are hooked up and I can use them. Being that it's been over two weeks since I last washed any clothes, I see a lot of laundry in my near future.

Tonight Sam flexed his cooking muscles and he made us duck for dinner.

Sam is a good cook, but he always makes "fancy" food. And by "fancy" I mean he uses a lot of pots and pans to make our meal.

Sam made a glaze and a sauce to go along with the duck. We never had duck before at home but it was good, so it's was worth the mound of dishes I have waiting for me.

All and all things have been good around here. I have found a good balance right now in my life (work, family, friends, etc.) and I hope to keep it that way.

Have a good week!

My Anniversary Gift

I first want to thank everyone who wished us "Happy Anniversary". It meant a lot to me. Also, I didn't realize until late last night that the highlight video wasn't working. It is now fixed, so if you wanted to watch it you can check it out here.

For our anniversary, we didn't do too much. We got our license changed with our new address, we got lunch, we got a cat...

 
Sam said he had a surprise for our anniversary and this was it. He didn't have a cat picked out, but he took me to our local shelter and we picked this guy out. It was hard to pick between his guy and a kitten named "Batman", but I really wanted a cat who was laid back and his guy totally is.

His name is Shamrock, but I'm not sure how much I like it. I thinking maybe calling him Bob or Max or something other then Shamrock. He's 8 years old and he came from a home of an elderly lady who just couldn't take care of him anymore.

He loves to snuggle and get attention, but he's totally cool just sitting next to you. I also love that he was already declawed on his front paws, so I didn't have to worry about him destroying our new couch.

Currently, it seems like I have a bit of an allergy of to him, but I'm hoping it gets better after a bit of brushing. If that doesn't work, I also bought some cat shampoo to try.

I won't lie, I feel like I'm cheating on my first fur baby.

I love my Sammy cat dearly; and he still safe and sound at grandma's house (my mom's). However, he doesn't travel well, and doesn't do well in new places. The last time I moved him, it took him over a week to get used to his new environment. Shamrock- it took him a whole 30 minutes to check out the whole place and make himself right at home. Sammy will always be my first pet, but Shamrock is our family's first pet.

All in all it was a great anniversary! And my husband did good on his surprise and gift. 

Happy Anniversary to Us!

I can't believe that our wedding was a year ago today! This year has gone by so quickly.

I know many of the readers were at the wedding (yes, I know my friends stalk my blog and that's ok with me), but I thought it would be fun to share our highlight video with you.

This highlight video was the nicest thing my video/ photography company did for me, because I wanted something to show at my Michigan wedding reception which was only two weeks later and they were able to put that video together for me.

Now that we have a year of marriage down my belt, I can say that the first year was harder then I expected  it to be but we made through it together.

~Sam,

I love you so much. Thanks for making me the luckiest girl in the world!

Love Your Wife,
~Stacy 

Top 5 Wedding Things: #1- The Bridal Party

When you think of weddings you think about so many things, but I really feel like the most important thing we did for our wedding was picking our bridal party.

For both Sam and I, we think of our friends as extensions of our family. I mean we love our friends so much that we asked them to join us on our honeymoon- not too many people would do that. So when it came to picking our wedding party, we wanted to include some of our closest friends.

When it came to picking the boys, I knew that Sam wasn't going to have too hard of a time picking. To start, he knew he had to include his two brothers.

Being that they're brothers, they have always supported our relationship and have always made me feel like family. These boys are characters and I was glad to have them join us on our special days.

Sam and Mike have been friends since junior high. Mike is one of Sam's oldest friends and it was a no-brainer that would be in our bridal party.

Tommy has been our of friends since he was in 8th grade. We were introduced to Tommy through Mike, but Tommy quickly became on of our good friends. Many of our stories from high school were at his house and/or he played a major part of the shenanigans that were had. He's fun, crazy, and knows how to have a good time.

Finally you have Chris. He is one of our newest friends, but he has a huge place in both of our hearts. He is crazy and he always makes for a good story (aka- the garter fight). We always have a good time when we are with him, but we also know he always has our back. When you think of people you want by your side during the zombie apocalypse, Chris is that guy!

 When it came to the girls, I also knew pretty quickly who I wanted to join me during my big day.

My sister was a pretty easy choice. Being that she's my only sibling, I knew I needed to make her my maid-of-honor. Even though it has taken us many years of fighting while growing up, we are finally starting to understand each other. I feel like as the years go on, we continue to grow closer and closer. We always have each others back, even if we don't express our love for each other as much as some other siblings may.

These three girls were very obvious picks for me. We have been friends since high school, but our relationships have only got stronger as we get older. I have been spent countless hours with these girls over the years. I know if I every need anything, all I have to do is pick up the phone and call. If I went into how important each of these girls are to me, would be it's own blog post. So simply put, my wedding wouldn't have been the same without them.

Finally, the last of my girls was my friend Cathy. She's been my friends since high school, and is always my shoulder to cry on. I have always had this connection with her that I've been able to talk to her about anything. She was great during the wedding process to help me with some of the things I just didn't want to deal with (my flowers, my dress, my favors, etc.). She was always willing to offer a helping hand in whatever I needed.

Without our friends I know Sam and I wouldn't be the people who we are today. Each person in our bridal party has played an important part of our lives, and I'm so happy they decided to share in our of special day.